All posts tagged cop17

Posted:
December 10, 2011
Author:
COA Students

unF**C our future

-nathan thanki

So while the AWG-KP plenary is suspended for Parties to get their heads together, let’s have a little fun. Late one night in the first week a few of us were sitting round the table of Hippo Hide backpackers. Samuli came in shouting about final outcomes, and we decided to all write down our predictions and keep them for the final night.

Well that night is now upon us friends. Here are our predictions. They’re all pretty grim, so we’re hoping against hope to be way off the mark.

Nathan: KP-2 will go ahead, with no/little reductions. Some sort of GCF will get approved – an empty shell, and some big concessions for developing countries. The price of this is that LCA will yield a new mandate for a climate regime involving all countries. India and China will be blamed. TEC and Adaptation Committee could go through but will be undermined later.

Graham: LCA will give us mandate for bottom up approach involving China, India, US. There will be a political KP-2, with more markets. India will lead blocking and get blamed. Loss and damage work programme will go through, NAPs won’t, Adaptation Committee will be blocked by SICA, there’ll be no GCF, the Adaptation fund is empty. Africa will sell out.

Samuli: We’ll get a political KP-2. LCA will be concluded with a durban mandate, consisting of 3 pillars: mitigation, adaptation, poverty eradication. To be concluded by 2015. The GCF will be established.

Anjali: KP-2 will happen. the BAP will continue but with more parties doing pledge and review under LCA (2018-2020). Japan and Canada will be doing that. The shared vision will be weak. The GCF will get established, but with too much private sector involvement and a private sector facility. The TEC will be launched, also with much private sector involvement.

Ethan (from SustainUS): The LCA will go out the window. There won’t be a KP-2. But CDM will be around for a while. GCF won’t be operational. There will be a 2nd transitional committee to re-design the GCF.

 

Currently it looks bad. Really bad. There are three options.

1. Collapse. Copenhagen take 2.

2. COP17 bis. In 6 months or so we’d have a resumed session to try and get it right.

3. The Durban Mandate gets pushed through as is. It’s the end of the UNFCCC (and the world) as we know it.

Posted:
December 10, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Yields of the Night Vigil

by Anjali Appadurai

I started this post at 4am, and worked on it intermittently until now – 9:30am. No new LCA text, no sleep. These ministers worked through the night, and through the documents they released from their “indaba” at a couple of different intervals, we have some meagre updates.

The indaba high-level consultations convened at midnight and are still going strong, with three draft texts produced thus far. They took a short break at around 2:30 but are back to work. Tonight, three new indaba texts were produced, plus an options table, a KP document and a “big picture” text. Discussed below is the “big picture” and the KP text.

Big picture:

The final LCA text was supposed to have been released at 6am, but it’s 7:30 and we’re still waiting. Basically, leaked documents show this “big picture” for the texts so far:

-          The text would end the AWG-LCA at COP18, or at least render it irrelevant because it would set up a parallel track under the Convention

-          The Bali Action Plan will be incomplete by COP18 but LCA will end anyway (ie – a broken commitment)

-          The LCA would be replaced with a new body of the name [XX] thus far

-          This new body would be the framework for creating a new treaty or protocol to address the same concerns as the LCA

-          The new treaty would include the major pillars of the Bali Action Plan (references to finance, technology transfer, capacity building, adaptation), but would not be the same in terms of content

-          There is no reference in the text to the principles of the Convention (common but differentiated and historical responsibility, equity)

-          The text would “call” for a process to develop a legally-binding agreement. Simply being legally-binding is not sufficient to ensure action. There needs to be substance.

 KP

The KP outcome is grim.

-          No second commitment period this year.

-          Rather, the mandate of the AWG-KP is pushed back

-          The text “invites” KP Parties (which now excludes Canada, Russia, Japan, in addition to the already absent US) to “offer” their pledges in an annex to the decision

-          In order for there to be ratification of the Protocol for a second commitment period, Parties must amend and ratify the original Annexes and full text. The text of the Annex B is totally different, and a 2CP cannot be achieved if this Annex B stays.

-          Does not include any text to say that Parties should start to apply the rules laid out in the document before it enters into force officially

-          There is no shared vision; ie, the text allows Japan, Canada and Russia to escape their obligations under KP. Aussie and NZ are only “considering” offering pledges.

-          This text provides a perfect backdoor with a red carpet for Annex 1 countries to make the Great Escape from their commitments

-          Loopholes and weak wording allows A1 countries to increase emissions.

 

 

 

 

Posted:
December 9, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Getting a movement going

by Graham Reeder

So after two weeks of singing and dancing in designated, coordinated, preapproved, action spaces, the official youth constituency just made their first risky move at this COP. Anjali delivered a powerful high-level plenary intervention about how the youth are being failed and how developed countries are to blame for delay on ambitious climate action, and the youth followed it up by a powerful human microphone with the lines “Mic check! Equity Now! You’ve run out of excuses. We’re running out of time. Get it done! Get it done! Get it done!”  The Human Microphone (or the people’s microphone) has been a tactic used since before the World Trade Organization protest in 1999 but has recently made a comeback with the Occupy Movement.

What was truly incredible about this action was that it received consensus approval by the official youth constituency morning meeting.  Although it wasn’t clear whether or not this is an ‘unsanctioned action’, there is no doubt that it was a risk. The official youth constituency can’t approve unsanctioned action, and is usually very hesitant to push any aggressive messaging. Earth in Brackets is ecstatic to see the youth come together on the things that unite them and take a strong stance. I wonder though, why only now? Why is it that we have to wait until the last day of COP to get a sense of a movement being present in the halls of the ICC? My sense is that there were a lot of fears of people losing their badges and their chances of getting future accreditation. Although I understand this to a certain extent, I’m not sure I understand why it is that people are using such an intense amount of resources to get here and choosing not to speak up. Anjali made a good point in her intervention, ambition and action are not radical, what is radical is changing the climate of the earth, sitting back and letting it happen is radical too.  I’m concerned that I see a huge portion of the youth here itching for more risks but the sense of status quo remains dominant. I strongly commend the actions of the 6 Canadian youth who took a stand (literally) and interrupted the Canadian delegation’s speech to point out who they work for and the Abigail’s action for the American youth by obstructing Todd Stern’s public voice at the convention. Both of these actions have garnered attention from major western press outlets, I haven’t seen any sing-a-longs on the New York Times website recently. Their actions and others like them are what this movement takes, not a pep rally.

This doesn’t just go for the youth though, I’ve watched the largest environmental NGOs that have come to represent the environmental movement in the media continually cut dangerous deals and make compromises on issues that aren’t theirs to compromise on. I’m really concerned that a handful of European and North American non-grassroots NGOs are the ones who decide if Durban is a success or not for the media; it’s not up to them. There are plenty of grassroots organizations that represent a much broader constituency (and a much more vulnerable one) that have the opinions but not the voice, they end up leaving the room rather than taking it over.

My major questions are these: What does it take to develop a sense of ambition? How is it that activists and policy wonks like me can get the message across to civil society that their governments will have no interest in doing anything until something gets shoved down their throat by the people who elect them? In turn, what are the strategies that grassroots civil society groups can use to bring our governments’ attention span away in a real way from powerful dirty corporate lobbyists to a science and human rights based approach to climate change? How do we do the same with the top-down NGOs?

I’m not being naïve here, I understand that the fossil fuels industry is the most profitable industry in history and that, in turn, they have the most powerful lobby the western world has ever seen. I’m not particularly interested in either naïve idealism or lazy defeatism; I’m asking for concrete strategic thoughts and suggestions.

Posted:
December 8, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Hold your breath and read this

or “Technology Transfer to date in the negotiations”

by Anjali Appadurai

One of the more concrete outcomes from Cancun last year was the establishment of a new “Technology Mechanism“. This cross-cutting mechanism was intended to be the place where the entire technology transfer cycle across the Convention could be managed. The Tech Mechanism consists of two parts: the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN). These two bodies are meant to work together to facilitate north-south and south-south flows of clean technology to help countries meet their emissions reduction targets.

The TEC is the policy arm of the Tech Mechanism; it guides the direction and strategy for technology development and transfer under the Convention. Made up of 20 executive members elected by the COP, the TEC is supposed to have equal representation from the global North and South.

The CTCN is a bit of a nebulous concept. It stands for Climate Technology Center and Network, yet to date no one really knows (Parties included) whether the Center and the Network will be two separate bodies or one integrated thing. Since the chair and vice chair of the TEC were decided in Panama (after lengthy discussions on whether a developed or developing nation official should have been the first Chair and vice-Chair, even though the positions rotate annually), the CTCN was the focus of half the discussions on tech transfer. It was handled under the subsidiary bodies (SBI/SBSTA).

Since the juicy stuff – IPRs and trade measures – were taken off the COP agenda and moved to informal meetings, us mere Observer parties were left with the dry bones of “host of the CTCN” and “modalities and procedures of the TEC” as topics to follow in negotiations. In case you’re already bored, I’ll try to make it as readable as possible.

Under the subsidiary bodies (the SBI and SBSTA), the talk centered around choosing the host for the CTCN. Discussions – both open and informal – laboured on for days before one of the co-chairs finally pointed out that there was no definition of “host” neither was there any definition of whether the CTCN would consist of a center, a network, or a combination of the two. This only made negotiations even more convoluted, and no decision was reached. There is, however, a detailed document elaborating how Parties may go about proposing a host, as well as an exhaustive list of criteria for this undefined host figure. The decision on this will probably be made sometime in early-mid 2012, but for now, I heard some juicy rumours floating around (some people in the YOUNGO working group on tech transfer are really good at sneaking up on negotiators and eavesdropping on their conversations).

First, a bit of background: India brought up a controversial proposition in one of the CTCN meetings. They called for increased financial support of the CTCN from the Global Environment Facility. The GEF, keep in mind, is a partner (and puppet) of the World Bank. Channeling funds from them into the CTCN would immediately give the WB influence over the CTCN’s activities – so this was already a contentious suggestion. A delegate from the Philippines later explained to me that India did this (and was supported by several other developing countries) as a way to get at least a bit of funding for the CTCN. The alternative would be the private sector initiatives pushed forward by the US (which, by the way, did get mentioned in the final decision because the US pushed so hard for them).

The first piece of gossip in the tech transfer hallways is that the GEF is putting in a bid to be the host of the CTCN. This would be a disaster for the future of tech transfer. The Technology Mechanism was created as a new mechanism last year, and the hope is that it will be fully operationalized by next year – there is great hope in this new beginning, and great potential for good things to be done to improve the flow and quality of technology to countries that need it. Instead, if the GEF ends up as the host, there would be a permanent WB presence in the tech transfer cycle.

Another rumour is that an Indian non-profit organization called The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), headed by Dr.R.K. Pachauri (also the head of the IPCC, which is the scientific body responsible for providing the “official” climate science to governments), is planning to put in a bid for host-ship. TERI aims to create “an environment that is enabling, dynamic and inspiring for the development of solutions to global problems in the fields of energy, environment and current patterns of development, which are largely unsustainable” (check out http://www.teriin.org). Now what a change in tune from the GEF! Moreover, TERI is based in India, which would place the CTCN leadership in the global South, where technology transfer should rightfully be based!

So there’s an update on the status of the Technology Mechanism. The latest (from today) is that the shortlist of hosts ranked in order of preference will be compiled by next August, and the host decided upon at COP18. Then maybe this Mechanism can finally get off the ground. So stay tuned!

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →